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Airways Brewing: Pouring and Soaring in…Kent?

In the small, inconspicuous West Valley Business Park, at the corner of 196th Street and 68th Avenue South, in what is technically a part of…Kent, there sits a maze of buildings that were intended for anything but businesses that thrive on visibility. It was designed as an office complex, not retail space, not restaurants or pubs, and most definitely NOT the hardest business category of any of these to make a go of: a brewery.

See, I don’t do Kent. Unless I have good reason – like going down for a trailer hitch last month – I never set foot in Kent. I can’t even understand why; some lurking psychological land mine, probably, but I just get…nervous in…Kent.

So, I was a bit shocked at myself when, Saturday, July 2nd, Judye told me to choose between checking out Skookum Brewing in Mount Vernon and Airways Brewing in…Kent, and I said, “Let’s go to Kent.”

Good freakin’ choice.

About fifteen months ago, Alex Dittmar and his wife, Dione, and some like-minded friends decided to hunker down smack in the middle of WVBP and open Airways Brewery. They’re in Building T, Suite 100, which you have to look down one of two long sidewalks to even see. That decision didn’t exactly help their visibility. I was reminded that they exist at all by a couple of internet blurbs I’d seen the last week of June, about them expanding and re-opening their tasting room. I really hadn’t heard a stinkin’ thing about Airways. They had less buzz than a apiary full of dead honeybees and were nobody’s Flavor Of The Week. So, our hopes weren’t exactly at DefCon 4, to begin with.

“Isn’t it great when something totally exceeds your expectations?” I asked Judye, as we drove away from Airways later Saturday afternoon…with happy smiles…and a growler.

Airways Brewmaster Alex Dittmar

Alex Dittmar sat with us for about 25 minutes, brought us samples of beer to come, and answered our questions – some of them nosy – about him, the brewery, brewing in general, and other stuff. He was relaxed, in that that odd way that I seem relaxed – breathing easy but giving off clear signs of frenzied activity to come – and was as down-to-earth and personable as any brewer I’ve met in Washington. Before he came out to see us, on the brewery’s tiny, intimate patio, we went through a four-glass taster and were, well, #$@&*!% floored. Golden Ale: Gorgeous. Basic IPA: Lovely and amazingly drinkable. Double IPA: Flippin’ stunning. Stout: As good a dry, medium/full-bodied dark ale as I’ve had from the Seattle area since the Clinton administration.

His ESB, the ale which has become the de facto signature beer, was out and I hated to miss tasting it but what was in front of us was so shocking and so totally Out Of The Blue (so to speak) that I soon forgot about it.

I asked Alex if he had ever brewed anywhere else before opening Airways and he grinned and said, “Just in my garage”. He went on to explain that he’s not the sort of brewer who experiments endlessly. He basically made the same beers over and over, tweaking, adjusting, and tasting until he had exactly what he wanted. And those are the same ales – and values – that became the core of Airways’ roster.

These beers absolutely bear the mark of someone’s best and most detailed efforts; of all that thought and tinkering and perfectionism. The Airways “First Class” IPA lived up to that name in spades: lovely copper hue, big floral/citrusy hops profile that screams out its Galena component, and balance that makes a mockery out of those hop-overdose IPAs that so many breweries start with. Alex admitted that he hadn’t even tried an IPA before he decided to open Airways and only made one at all because he knew he had to. This, for a last-second, obligatory IPA, is a little stunning in its replete, grown-up flavor profile and solid, rib-sticking body.

Even better was the “Sky Hag” Double IPA . I took a look at the description on the beer menu after I tasted it and my fond suspicion was confirmed: all Columbus hops – a Single-Hop Double IPA! I had only tried a SHDIPA made with Columbus once before, as an experimental beer at Terminal Gravity Brewing, in Enterprise Oregon, and this was every bit as good. The assertive, spicy, pungent Columbus shows less of the citrus tones of Cascade and many other Yakima hops and that works brilliantly here, leaving me rethinking my passion for citrus notes in IPA. This beer, IMHO, absolutely belongs in the same league with Ninkasi “Tricerahops” and 21st Amendment “Hop Crisis” and Pike Double IPA, but demands a sub-category, as it has little, if anything, in common with those and most other Doubles. I still vividly remember the Terminal Gravity but I don’t have to drive to freakin’ Oregon and wait for them to brew another tiny batch. This is 30 minutes from my house and made, just like this, all flippin’ year!

The growler we took home was filled with the Airways “T-Tail Blonde”, a honey-infused beer that does what almost every other honeyed ale I’ve ever tasted doesn’t: tastes like honey. Alex explained that he added the Pierce County artisan honey after the boil, as the ale was pulled off hot, to keep it from degrading and “baking out” in the hot kettle. As any chef knows, if you want to create a prominent flavor, add it after cooking. This is just a flat-out compelling Golden; NOT the sweet, cloying syrup you’d expect from that late addition. It’s admirably dry, in fact, and melds the honey gracefully into the rich malt and herb-tea notes of the hops. It is almost brutally refreshing, going down with a tempered crispness and muscular finish that begs you to drink more. Judye fell slap-flat in love with it and I’m having to smack my hands to keep out of it long enough to make it to our annual fireworks-viewing party.

As if all this weren’t enough to make our venture into the wilds of…Kent an unqualified success, the Airways “Starliner” Stout sealed the deal. I know that this blog sometimes reads like Hyperbole Fest 2011 but the simple fact is that Washington breweries are doing magnificent things – and doing them sooner – than at any time in our brewing history. But it’s in the category of Stouts and Porters – the Big Darks – that Washington radically under-performs. Simply put, we have nothing at all like Deschutes “The Abyss”, Three Floyds “Dark Lord”, Great Divide “Yeti” (any of the 234 current Yetis), Victory “Storm King”, or Goose Island “Bourbon County”. We seem to be given mostly – with notable exceptions like Walking Man “Jaywalker” and Snoqualmie “Steam Train” – to leaner, Irish Dry Stout varieties which, while they can be sumptuous and satisfying, lack the purely visceral appeal of a Big 30-Weight.

“Starliner” is another animal altogether. Yeah, it’s dry and no more than medium-to-full-bodied but the primary flavors are a gorgeous dark chocolate, dark caramel, and rich espresso which, while not absent in other WA darks, are distinctly different here. Many of the bigger WA Stout/Porter ales I’ve tasted in the past five years carried a definite undertone of something burnt; a flavor like cigar ash (or worse) that arises from clumsily roasted grains. “Starliner” is the first dry dark I’ve tasted in years that shows absolutely no trace of that over-roasting. It achieves those hallmark Stout flavors in discrete, pure, and remarkably vivid style, giving a mild, flattering impression of sweetness without resorting to sugar. The chocolate is so vivid and in-yo-face that it was like sipping a dark ale through a chunk of very mellow dark chocolate. Right behind that was an emphatic blast of freshly-ground coffee and following – like a tiny, wet chorus line – were molasses, caramel, currants, and a soft, pungent smokiness. As one of those freaks who persists in drinking Stout all summer long, I was blown out of my socks by this stuff and plan to show up for a pint, regularly.

Let me be blunt about this: if you love English or Scottish-style beer (or even German. There’s a Zwickelbier(!) coming out of barrel this weekend!) and you live in the Seattle area, you miss Airways Brewing at the peril of your very taste buds. Yeah, it’s a trick to find, at first…but your tongue will be your GPS whenever you get thirsty.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..